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GS(3) Intelligenc Briefing 7-8-06: Energy Security, Sustainability, Global Warming, Environmental Security, Human Rights, Nuclear Proliferation, Economic Espionage, Intelligence Gathering & Influence Warfare in the Blogosphere
Here are highlights from 12 items, including both news stories and op-ed pieces, from 12 diverse, international news sources: Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Eurasianet, Common Dreams, Think Progress, Dominican Today, Baltimore Sun, The Australian, Zaman, EU Observer, One World, and the USAF Office of Scientific Research provide insight on important global issues and trends. In this briefing, the interdependent issues of global warming, energy security, environmental security, sustainability, and the struggle for geopolitical hegemony are featured. Nuclear proliferation, human rights, economic espionage, and influence warfare and intelligence gathering in the blogosphere are also covered. (NOTE: I will continue to monitor developments in the Mexican presidential election, and post GS(3) Thunderbolts as I have twice already since 7-8-06. Likewise, if there is a significant development in regard to bird flu, I will post a Thunderbolt.)
Here is a summary. Longer excerpts and links follow below. Customized analysis is provided for clients.
EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
France sets itself the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. That implies a reduction on the order of 3% per year of greenhouse gas emissions starting today. So what do we observe with respect to energy production? That France is preparing to put into service over 10,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity production based on fossil fuel between now and 2012, or the equivalent of close to ten nuclear reactors….(Le Monde, 7-4-06)
In the first case of its kind in Western Europe, a Danish court has prosecuted an entire family for the honor-killing of an 18-year-old Pakistani immigrant. Will the case set a precedent for other European countries dealing with similar incidents? Members of Ghazala Khan's immediate and extended family were involved in the plot to kill her… (Der Spiegel, 7-4-06)
ASIA PACIFIC
In the wake of the "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine in early 2006, and the brief interruption it caused in supplies to Europe, the world awoke to the increasing importance of Central Asian natural gas for European energy security. After all, the bulk of the natural gas that Ukraine imports through Russia comes from Turkmenistan. Now, with international ratings agency Fitch warning that the elements are in place for a "perfect storm" of an energy crisis, news comes on June 30 that talks between Turkmenistan and Ukraine over an independent agreement for gas supplies in the fourth quarter of 2006 have bumped up against the issue of transit through Russia. (Eurasianet, 7-4-06)
The Bush Administration has unleashed a full-court press of shuttle diplomacy in an effort to keep Nursultan Nazarbayev out of the orbit of Russia and China, America's rivals in the region….At first glance Kazakhstan appears to be booming….But there are two economies, one for a tiny portion of wealthy elites, the other for everyone else…Someday, inevitably, those millions of Kazakhs will liberate themselves from Nazarbayev's rule. They, not him, will control the world's largest untapped oil reserves. And they won't forget America's role in prolonging their agony. (Ted Rall, Common Dreams, 7-6-06)
AMERICAS
A new study to be published today in the journal Science…concludes that recent increases in Western wildfires may be a result of global warming. While “part of the increase may be attributed to natural fluctuations, evidence also links it to the effects of human-induced climate warming,” according to Dan Cayan, a co-author of the paper and director of the climate research division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (Think Progress, 7-6-06)
Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, proposed yesterday in Gambia to the 53 African Union countries to add them selves to the regional projects Petrosur (petroleum program that integrates South American countries) and Telesur (television signal delivered to Shouth American countries), to impel integration between Africa and Latin America….(Domincan Today, 7-2-06)
The U.S. attorney in Detroit yesterday announced charges of stealing trade secrets against three former employees of an auto supplier, saying economic espionage stabs at the heart of the Michigan economy and is a growing priority among his federal prosecutors. (Baltimore Sun, 7-6-06)
US authorities last night charged three people with a cloak-and-dagger scheme to sell secrets from Coca-Cola to soft drink arch-rival PepsiCo, which helped in the investigation….(The Australian, 7-6-06)
GLOBAL
[International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) President Mohammed] ElBaradei said stated the regime of preventing nuclear proliferation is flawed; if we really want nonproliferation to be successful, first the United States, Russia, France, China, and Britain should reduce their nuclear arsenal, implement the conditions specified in international agreements that prohibit testing nuclear weapons, ban the production of materials used in building nuclear weapons, and stop promoting the strategic role of nuclear weaponry. (Zaman, 7-6-06)
Europe's growing air-transport industry must do more to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by joining the bloc's carbon trading scheme and start paying tax on jet fuel, EU lawmakers said….Between 1990 and 2003, the EU's international aviation emissions have increased by 73 percent by an average of 4 percent a year. …"At this rate the increased emissions from aviation will neutralise more that a quarter of the reductions required by the EU's Kyoto target by 2012," said Ms Lucas ….(EU Observer, 7-4-06)
Wind power is "poised to become to become the foundation of the new energy economy," claims a new survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute…."The generating capacity of new wind plants alone that were ordered in 2005 was triple the figure for nuclear power. And because renewable technologies are smaller scale and modular, their cost is falling rapidly as the scale of production rises. In recent months, renewable power has become one of the hottest sectors for venture capitalists looking for 'the next big thing.'" (One World, 7-3-06)
CYBERSPACE
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.….. “The fact that the web is a vast source of information is sometimes overlooked by military analysts,” Kokar said. “Our research goal is to provide the warfighter with a kind of information radar to better understand the information battlespace.” (Air Force Office of Scientific Research, 6-29-06)
Longer excerpts and links follow below.
EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
France sets itself the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. That implies a reduction on the order of 3% per year of greenhouse gas emissions starting today. So what do we observe with respect to energy production? That France is preparing to put into service over 10,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity production based on fossil fuel between now and 2012, or the equivalent of close to ten nuclear reactors….How can we explain this frenzy of construction of electrical capacities of all kinds, so contrary to the proclaimed necessity of taking climate change and the environment into account? By the intangible dogma that electricity consumption must inevitably increase…In the dominant logic, it won't be until the middle of the next decade, at best, that the electricity sector would be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In this perspective, the development of renewable energies serves only as an ecological alibi for a fundamentally unchanged policy….Why do governments take an increase in electricity consumption as a given? First of all, because in the same breath with the liberalization promoted in Europe in the 1990s, they deprived themselves of the means to direct energy policy. "Everything is left to the initiative of the market," deems Pierre Radanne, an independent consultant, "while operators essentially target remunerating their share-holders."
….as Benjamin Dessus from the think tank Global Chance remarks, "There is no energy economizing lobby," even though that is an important source of economic efficiency and employment. The reduction in energy consumption is, in fact, the best means to reach the objective of a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. A study that Global Chance has just published shows that even if we were to pursue nuclear and renewable energy programs to the limits of their possibilities in the world, we would only be able to stabilize the emissions of greenhouse gases in 2030, while the growth in electricity consumption continued. On the other hand, "the scenario based on a program of control over energy demand alone would allow the stabilization of emissions much sooner, around 2025." Hervé Kempf, Energy and Climate: Leaving the Frenzy, Le Monde, 7-4-06
In the first case of its kind in Western Europe, a Danish court has prosecuted an entire family for the honor-killing of an 18-year-old Pakistani immigrant. Will the case set a precedent for other European countries dealing with similar incidents? Members of Ghazala Khan's immediate and extended family were involved in the plot to kill her. The ruling was as historic. Last week, a court in Copenhagen practically convicted an entire family for the role it played in planning and executing the honor-killing of 18-year-old Ghazala Khan. It could set a precedent for the rest of Europe as countries seek to mete out punishment for similar crimes. The Danish court sentenced the Pakistani immigrant's father to life in prison for his influential role as patriarch in the planning of the murder. The brother who actually carried out the act of murdering Khan has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. Other family members were also slapped with long prison sentences for the role they played in the crime....Last September, Khan died after her brother shot her, execution style with his pistol in the city of Slagelse. Her Afghan husband -- whom she had married just two days before the shooting -- survived the attack, but only after an emergency operation. The deeply religious Muslim Pakistani immigrant family disapproved of her speedy marriage because it didn't conform with their religious views.... Postcard from Denmark: A Warning to Would-Be Honor Killers, Der Spiegel, 7-4-06
ASIA PACIFIC
In the wake of the "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine in early 2006, and the brief interruption it caused in supplies to Europe, the world awoke to the increasing importance of Central Asian natural gas for European energy security. After all, the bulk of the natural gas that Ukraine imports through Russia comes from Turkmenistan. Now, with international ratings agency Fitch warning that the elements are in place for a "perfect storm" of an energy crisis, news comes on June 30 that talks between Turkmenistan and Ukraine over an independent agreement for gas supplies in the fourth quarter of 2006 have bumped up against the issue of transit through Russia. The previous day, Turkmenistan and Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom broke off talks on late-2006 shipments to Russia amid Turkmen threats to cut off supplies in September. Is the storm fast approaching?
…The underlying problem is the fragility of the entire framework for keeping Ukraine supplied with Turkmen gas, the essential component shielding Ukraine’s economy from a potentially lethal price hike. What’s worse, the fragility has multiple causes. For starters, Ukraine’s economy is ill suited to withstand higher gas prices even as those prices are rising. And Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftohaz Ukrayiny is financially strapped, with a $60 million debt to Turkmenistan for 2003-05 shipments and, according to Gazprom, arrears of $370 million for 2006 shipments as of June 15 (although Gazprom Deputy Chairman Ryazanov said that he expected Ukraine to pay that debt down to $100 million by July 1, and Ukraine has apparently promised to make good on its $64 million debt to Turkmenistan in September)….Yet another factor is Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, who enjoys nearly unlimited power and has used it to indulge in such megalomaniacal whimsy as the construction of a huge golden statue of himself that rotates to face the sun at all times….And then there is Kremlin-controlled Gazprom, which jealously guards the only pipelines that can ship Turkmen gas to Ukraine. Daniel Kimmage, TURKMENISTAN: THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF EUROPEAN ENERGY SECURITY, Eurasianet, 7-4-06
The Bush Administration has unleashed a full-court press of shuttle diplomacy in an effort to keep Nursultan Nazarbayev out of the orbit of Russia and China, America's rivals in the region. On May 5 Cheney appeared in the capital city of Astana with Nazarbayev at his side, hailing Kazakhstan's supposed political and economic liberalization. Declaring the police state America's "strategic partner," the veep invited Nazarbeyev to the White House this September for an official state visit with Bush--an honor recently denied to the president of China on human rights grounds. "I think the [Kazakh] record speaks for itself," Cheney said…Sergei Duvanov, deputy director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, accuses the U.S. of siding with vicious dictators against the millions of people they oppress. "Nazarbayev was very glad to hear what Cheney had to say, and understood it as carte blanche to come down harder on the opposition," Duvanov, a former journalist who spent a year and a half in a Kazakh prison on rape charges trumped up to silence his pro-democracy reporting, said. "He now understands that building democracy is not as important as oil and economic stability."
At first glance Kazakhstan appears to be booming. The country is "overrun with construction cranes," reports the New York Times. Almaty has its first French restaurant. There's even a Kazakh edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. But there are two economies, one for a tiny portion of wealthy elites, the other for everyone else. The Red Cross says that "three-quarters of Kazakhstan's 15.7 million population [lives] below the poverty line." Poverty is getting worse as spending by corrupt government officials and their oil-connected benefactors fuels inflation.
Someday, inevitably, those millions of Kazakhs will liberate themselves from Nazarbayev's rule. They, not him, will control the world's largest untapped oil reserves. And they won't forget America's role in prolonging their agony. Ted Rall, U.S. Plants Seeds of Disaster in Kazakhstan, Common Dreams, 7-6-06
AMERICAS
A common right-wing argument about why global warming isn’t a problem is that it may have positive benefits for the earth….A new study to be published today in the journal Science, however, concludes that recent increases in Western wildfires may be a result of global warming. While “part of the increase may be attributed to natural fluctuations, evidence also links it to the effects of human-induced climate warming,” according to Dan Cayan, a co-author of the paper and director of the climate research division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The AP reports on the study: An analysis of data going back to 1970 indicates the fires increased “suddenly and dramatically” in the 1980s and the wildfire season grew longer, according to scientists in Arizona and California. … Beginning about 1987, there was a change from infrequent fires averaging about one week in duration to more frequent ones that often burned five weeks or more, they reported. The length of the wildfire season was extended by 78 days. “So far in 2006, more than 3.8 million acres have burned in the United States — double the 10-year average for this time of year,” according to the Interagency Fire Center. In 2000, fires burned 7.4 million acres across the West and more than 20 people died. New Study: Manmade Global Warming Contributing To Increase In Wildfires, Think Progress, 7-6-06
Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, proposed yesterday in Gambia to the 53 African Union countries to add them selves to the regional projects Petrosur (petroleum program that integrates South American countries) and Telesur (television signal delivered to Shouth American countries), to impel integration between Africa and Latin America…..“It would be good to articulate an energy, oil, and petrochemical strategy…, an affluent combined project, a project like Petrosur, and we will see miracles in the short term", said Chávez, at the summit. "We are going to create Petrosur, in Latin America, is taking form now (...), Venezuela has one of the greatest petroleum reserves in the world", said the Venezuelan President Chávez also proposed to extend south’s Television (Telesur) to Africa thus, establishing “cooperation mechanisms of cultural and communicational interchange"…..Chavez also exhorted Africa to promote along with Latin America the creation of the South’s Bank” as a mechanism sustain development that places priority in the human being"…. Chávez proposes Africa's participation in South American programs, Domincan Today, 7-2-06
The U.S. attorney in Detroit yesterday announced charges of stealing trade secrets against three former employees of an auto supplier, saying economic espionage stabs at the heart of the Michigan economy and is a growing priority among his federal prosecutors. The former employees of Metaldyne Corp., arraigned in U.S. District Court after a 64-count grand jury indictment was unsealed, are accused of stealing the Plymouth, Mich., company's trade secrets and sharing them with Chinese competitors. They each face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 if convicted. Metaldyne, which has 45 plants in 14 countries, makes a wide range of auto parts for engines, drivetrains and chassis systems. The company has annual sales of $2 billion and about 6,500 employees. Trade-secret theft charged in Detroit, Baltimore Sun, 7-6-06
US authorities last night charged three people with a cloak-and-dagger scheme to sell secrets from Coca-Cola to soft drink arch-rival PepsiCo, which helped in the investigation….The offer of "confidential" information from Coca-Cola sparked an FBI investigation with an undercover agent offering $US1.5 million dollars in cash. The investigation was launched after PepsiCo turned over to its cola rival a letter in May from a person identifying himself as "Dirk," who claimed to be employed at a high level with Coca-Cola and offered "very detailed and confidential information," a US Justice Department statement said….According to authorities, an FBI undercover agent met on June 16 with Dimson, who was posing as "Dirk" at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. Dimson gave the agent "a brown Armani Exchange bag containing one manila envelope with documents marked 'highly confidential' and one glass bottle with a white label containing a liquid product sample," the statement said…..FBI lays charges on Coke secrets, The Australian, 7-6-06
GLOBAL
[International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) President Mohammed] ElBaradei said stated the regime of preventing nuclear proliferation is flawed; if we really want nonproliferation to be successful, first the United States, Russia, France, China, and Britain should reduce their nuclear arsenal, implement the conditions specified in international agreements that prohibit testing nuclear weapons, ban the production of materials used in building nuclear weapons, and stop promoting the strategic role of nuclear weaponry.
Speaking to Turkey’s NTV network ahead of his visit to Turkey today, the IAEA president asserted that India, Pakistan, and Israel, not signatories to the Non-proliferation Treaty, have no right to stay outside the scope of the Treaty....Regarding the Iranian nuclear problem, ElBaradei said diplomacy is the way to resolve the problem, and added he is optimistic about keeping the talks with Tehran alive. Furthermore, he added Iran did not have the capability of producing nuclear weapons in the near future. 'Before Iran, Major Countries Should First Comply with the Terms' Zaman, 7-6-06
Europe's growing air-transport industry must do more to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by joining the bloc's carbon trading scheme and start paying tax on jet fuel, EU lawmakers said….A large majority of MEPs meeting in Strasbourg voted in favour of a draft report by UK green MEP Caroline Lucas proposing to limit the impact of air traffic on climate change. Air traffic is not part of the Kyoto Protocol - an international agreement adopted in 1997, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emission by industrialised nations by 8 percent by 2012, compared to 1990 levels. "The strong majority in favour of the report on climate change and aviation sends a clear signal to the commission that strict and binding legislation is needed to curb the fast-growing climatic damage caused by airlines," Ms Lucas said at a press conference after the vote.
"Doing nothing is clearly not an option," she added.
Between 1990 and 2003, the EU's international aviation emissions have increased by 73 percent by an average of 4 percent a year.
EU air traffic movements are set to more than double by 2020 and triple by 2030, according to Eurocontrol – Europe's air safety navigation agency.
"At this rate the increased emissions from aviation will neutralise more that a quarter of the reductions required by the EU's Kyoto target by 2012," said Ms Lucas ….The parliament is proposing a separate trading scheme for the air-transport industry as many are worried about the effect of the air industry entering the existing and already wobbly carbon trading exchange. Helena Spongenberg, Airlines should have own emissions trading scheme, MEPs say, EU Observer, 7-4-06
Wind power is "poised to become to become the foundation of the new energy economy," claims a new survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute. According to the environmental group, global wind electricity-generating capacity increased by 24 percent in 2005 to 59,100 megawatts--a twelvefold increase from a decade ago, when world wind-generating capacity stood at less than 5,000 megawatts. The report says wind power is the world's fastest-growing energy source with an average annual growth rate of 29 percent over the last ten years. In contrast, over the same time period, coal use has grown by 2.5 percent per year, nuclear power by 1.8 percent, natural gas by 2.5 percent, and oil by 1.7 percent….
"Renewable sources of power provide about 20 percent of the world's electricity today, more than nuclear power does," Worldwatch president Christopher Flavin wrote in the latest issue of the organization's magazine. "More importantly, they are active, growing industries, attracting over $25 billion in new investment last year.
"The generating capacity of new wind plants alone that were ordered in 2005 was triple the figure for nuclear power. And because renewable technologies are smaller scale and modular, their cost is falling rapidly as the scale of production rises. In recent months, renewable power has become one of the hottest sectors for venture capitalists looking for 'the next big thing.'" Aaron Glantz, The Race to Replace Fossil Fuels, One World, 7-3-06
CYBERSPACE
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism. Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, senior scientist, and Dr. Mieczyslaw M. Kokar, president, Versatile Information Systems Inc., Framingham, Mass., will receive approximately $450,000 in funding for the 3-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.” “It can be challenging for information analysts to tell what’s important in blogs unless you analyze patterns,” Ulicny said. Patterns include the content of the blogs as well as what hyperlinks are contained within the blog. Within blogs, hyperlinks act like reference citations in research papers thereby allowing someone to discover the most important events bloggers are writing about in just the same way that one can discover the most important papers in a field by finding which ones are the most cited in research papers. This type of analysis can help information analysts’ searches be as productive as possible. The blog study is part of Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s new Information Forensics and Process Integration research program recently launched at Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y. The new portfolio of projects consists of three areas of research emphasis – incomplete information and metrics; search, interactive design, and active querying; and cognitive processing. One of the problems analysts may have with blog monitoring, Ulicny noted, is there is too much actionable information for the analyst to properly analyze. “We are developing an automated tool to tell analysts what bloggers are most interested in at a point in time,” Ulicny said. This analysis, Kokar said, is based on what Versatile Information Systems calls the RSTC approach to blog analysis – relevance, specificity, timeliness, and credibility. RSTC helps information analysts filter the most important information to study….. “The fact that the web is a vast source of information is sometimes overlooked by military analysts,” Kokar said. “Our research goal is to provide the warfighter with a kind of information radar to better understand the information battlespace.” William J. Sharp, Blogs Study May Provide Credible Information, The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding
a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Public Affairs, 6-29-06
Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net
Geopolitics, Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, Peak Oil, Blogosphere, , Human Rights, Economic Espionage, Nuclear Proliferation, Denmark, France, Hugo Chavez, Telesur, Petrosur
